


Auction House

by IdrisEleven



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Meetings, M/M, Some names modernized, leario - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdrisEleven/pseuds/IdrisEleven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Girolamo Riario is Vice President of Security, Leo and friends are cater-waiters at an event where Girolamo first meets Zita.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auction House

**Author's Note:**

> A little ficlet for an underserved fandom.

 “You would have to pay me to go to something like that.”

Leo was tipped back in his chair, his feet up on the assemblage of wood he called a desk, a large sketch pad on his lap. His hands were covered with the red dust of his sketching charcoal, and Riario could see traces of it on Leo’s face and even in his hair.

“Well, technically, I am paid to go to this. I thought you would be interested; it’s quite a collection of oddities we will have on display this year.” Riario’s voice was always pitched low and quiet, it seemed to be successful at keeping Leo from working himself up into a tantrum. He didn’t look at Leo, but directed his comments to the wall. Leo had asked him to sit for a profile study, so he felt obligated to hold still.

Nevertheless, he winced at Leo’s derisive snort. “It’s a low-rent Met Gala; just an excuse for a bunch of publicity hungry clothes horses to tart themselves up in ridiculous costumes and parade in front of a bunch of cameras. Have you seen the kind of pictures that get picked up from your ‘Halloween Ball?’ Old guys in tuxedos in the background ogling at celebutants wearing the most outrageous things they are willing to be photographed in. It’s ….” He paused, evidently groping for a word to convey his distain.

Riario offered some options. “Eschatological? Degenerate? Decadent? Declinist?”

Typically, Leo abandoned his search for the right word, and moved on. “Why do you have to be there, anyway?”

Riario sighed. Leo’s penchant for objecting to things was annoyingly childish; it was obvious that he understood the reality, he just didn’t care for it. “Because I am the vice president of security for the auction house, Leo, and I have the office suite and the paycheck to prove it. Of course I have to be there; all the best pieces are going to be on display, and it’s my job to make sure that nothing happens to any of them.” He turned his head to look at his sulky boyfriend, and Leo made a sound of annoyance, and gestured for him to get back to profile.

“If being paid is the prerequisite to your attendance, I can arrange for that.” He listened for a pause in the sound of chalk dragged across paper; Leo was an artist, he could always use extra money. “There is a new caterer for the event, we will need waiters.” There it was, the pause that meant Leo was listening to the offer. “You could bring those other starving artist friends of yours as well and I will pay them to pass trays. They just need white shirts and black pants. Staff does not need to be in costume.”

The scratching sounds continued, a bit more slowly; Leo was obviously considering the opportunity. He was not the only starving artist in his circle, and the chance to get some actual income into the hands of his friends was appealing.

Riario made a last comment to seal the deal. “It’s an ‘Esoterica’ collection, Leo. There are things that would make Hieronymous Bosch say ‘that’s going a bit too far.’ You can stay afterwards and sketch them.”

*****

The street in front of the Della Rovere Auction House was lined with limousines, lit like a movie set, and crowded with photographers. The traffic was backed up, since some of the costumes were sufficiently elaborate that exiting a car was long process. One leggy supermodel had decked herself out as Kali, and the ornate headpiece and extra arms of the costume made maneuvering to the red carpet extremely tricky. There was a Marie Antoinette, as usual, with a towering wig and enormous panniers who hadn’t been able to fit into a regular car. They never could; after the first time, the della Roveres had arranged for private access to a dressing room and the wearer could be brought back to the red carpet once she was fully assembled.

Inside the mansion, Riario ran a finger inside the high collar of his shirt. The evening had just started, and already it was hot and crowded. At least as an official representative of the company, he wasn’t expected to wear a costume. His job was to be charming to the guests, and to keep tabs on the items displayed around the main floor.

He had security posted around the building, both inside and out, placed visibly in uniforms, as well as ringers disguised as guests. The mansion looked like a pristine piece of Gilded Age excess, but it had been thoroughly retrofitted with security cameras and air pressure sensors and proximity alarms, with a team of specialists watching the feeds on monitors in the basement.

Riario had just completed a circuit of the floor when he encountered his uncle, standing under a banner strung across the second floor balcony: “Palazzo Della Rovere presents: The Secret Archives.” “Girolamo, come here,” he called, and Riario excused himself from a knot of people and crossed the expansive entryway.

“Uncle Frank,” he said with a nod.

“Hermann, this is my nephew, Girolamo Riario. He is in charge of security for this little soirée. Girolamo, Hermann here is the original collector of these artifacts.” Hermann deigned to nod his magnificent mane of white hair, apparently considering it unnecessary to chat with staff. Riario smiled with only his lips and noticed the Knights of Columbus insignia on Hermann’s watchband. Someone with a complicated relationship with Catholicism then; part of the hierarchy, but collecting heretical artifacts. He didn’t hear the exact words his uncle is saying, but he could guess: any questions or concerns about security, Riario is excellent at his job, don’t hesitate to ask. He left quickly, after he offered an excuse about needing to speak to the wait staff about reporting any odd behaviors.

The waiters had started circulating with trays of drinks and small antipasti. The first ones out were security personnel that he had worked with before, so there was no need to give them any instructions. It was the new hires he had to talk to. They were still in the kitchen catering area, Leo and several of his friends, chattering about the artifacts they’d seen. Behind them, the caterers were sliding baking racks in and out of ovens, plating morsels of food. In the center of the activity stoods a woman Riario had never seen before, a center of calm made the kitchen much less hectic than he had ever seen at one of these events.

And there was really no reason he to introduce himself to her; catering and security were not really overlapping areas, after all. But she noticed him, and a bright smile crossed her dark face. He found he was standing next to her before he made a conscious decision to speak to her.

“It’s an honor,” she saids, “having the head of security here in my kitchen.” Her voice is lilting and musical, and he didn’t even wonder how she knews who he was. “My name is Zita, and I have been looking forward to this event. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

Riario didn’t have anything to do with hiring the caterers, and he wanted to tell her as much, but at that moment, Leo and his friends broke in. “So, come on, Riario.” Zoroaster was wearing a white shirt that technically fit him, but somehow seemed to be on the verge of opening across his chest at any moment. “There is no way that there was ever really a sword in a stone. King Arthur wasn’t even real, so how can there be a sword and a stone?”

“Not to mention, why would the sword be back in the stone anyway?” Leo crossed his arms over his chest, a pugnacious look on his face as though the lack of plausibility was a personal insult to his intelligence. “Even if there was a King Arthur, and even if there had been a sword for him to pull out of the stone, there is literally no reason for him to have put it back. Not even the mythology claims that.”

A head of unruly blond curls slipped under Zoroaster’s arm as Nico added his two cents worth. “And really, the poison ring that Roderigo Borgia used to poison Pope Innocent so he could be pope? Nobody even thinks that actually happened.”

Vanessa stood a bit apart, putting up her hair into a bun. She shuddered as she added, “I saw those ‘demon skeletons.’ I think they were conjoined twins or something?” She narrowed her eyes at Riario. “Is this all stuff you guys are auctioning off this weekend? Isn’t it all fake?”

It was not his job to explain provenance, it was not his job to verify the authenticity of items for sale by the auction house, especially not to the wait staff. He was here to give them a quick orientation to the kind of suspicious behavior he wanted them to report if they saw. They were fourth level security, at best, but there had been more than one time a server with a tray of hors d’oeuvres had prevented the accidental destruction of an artifact by a drunken patron.

Before he could say anything, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder, and Zita had appeared beside him. Her soft body was pressed against his left arm, and he was aware of her hip against his thigh. She gave no indication that she had even noticed the contact, as she looked at the group in front of Riario.

“This is the Wolff Hermann collection, haven’t you heard of it?” No one had; their blank expressions were comically identical. “He trained for the priesthood—a Catholic, you know—but he had a famous falling out with his father when he didn’t want to take vows. He collects hoaxes. Mostly religious ones, mostly Catholic ones at that; it had to do with proving something to his father. These hoaxes are pretty good ones, but mostly they are valuable because of who fell for them in the first instance.” She looked over at Zoroaster. “You are right about the sword in the stone, of course, but that particular sword in the stone was sold by Thomas Mallory. You know, the one who wrote Morte d’Arthur?”

Vanessa knew that one, of course, and Zo did as well. Nico remained confused, and Zo ruffled his hair and offered to explain it all later. “Mallory was a criminal and a thief, but he wrote this gorgeous work about chivalric ideals. The story is that he found the original ‘sword in the stone’ and that’s what lead him to write down the Arthur legends.”

Nico’s eyes were larger than usual. Riario nearly laughed; if they got any larger, they would swallow his entire face. “That’s the one that’s out there?”

Zita nodded, and Nico scraped up the courage to ask another question. “Then, what about that poison ring?” Zita looked serious as she answered the boy. “The pope who followed the Borgia one—he hated Roderigo Borgia. Hated him so much that after Borgia died, he arrested and tortured some of the servants until they testified that Borgia had poisoned the previous pope. That was the ring that the new pope claimed proved Borgia’s crimes. So it is interesting, possibly even more interesting than if it was proved to be a Borgia ring, because there’s a mystery to it. Where did it actually come from? Whose was it if it wasn’t the Borgia’s?” She looked at Riario with a smile in her eyes. “People will pay even more for a mystery than for an answer.”

Suddenly she was briskly dusting off her hands. “Now, we have hungry guests out there. Get out there, make sure people are fed, and keep an eye out for anybody who might grab one of those items, by accident or not.” She shooed them out into the main hall, then turned one last time to Riario. “It is a fascinating catalog your house has put together. I’d love to be able to read the whole thing sometime. Now go. Do your job, but when everybody has left, come back here and I’ll have something for you.”

It was hours later before he made it back into the kitchen, only to find it disappointingly empty of any Zita. There was a small wrapped package on the immaculate counter, however. A business card with Zita’s name and phone number on top of a freshly made wheel of panpepato, and in a distinctive angular scrawl: “I made it with my own hands.”

**Author's Note:**

> Zita is a complex and interesting character who deserves more fan love than she gets, and a better fate than she got. I'm happy to expand on tags, notes, etc. Let me know in the comments what you are looking for!


End file.
